


they say we're young and we don't know (I got you babe)

by duchessofavalon



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-04
Updated: 2012-11-04
Packaged: 2017-11-17 23:32:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/554419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duchessofavalon/pseuds/duchessofavalon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>or, "Five times Jordan Eberle didn't realize he was calling Taylor Hall 'babe' till after he did it, and one time he did it anyway."</p>
            </blockquote>





	they say we're young and we don't know (I got you babe)

**Author's Note:**

> Another contribution in my attempt to reduce the deficit of Hallsy/Ebs fic on this site. Title shamelessly stolen from "I Got You Babe" by Sonny and Cher, because I am The Cheesiest. Thanks to the AH-MAZING ChibiRHM for the beta as always.

The first time it happens, neither of them even notice. Kreuger had bag-skated them just for the hell of it, Taylor figures, since they have the next day off. Taylor is dying afterwards, so he’s moving a lot slower than usual. He’s the last one in the showers and by the time he makes it back into the locker room, worn Spits sweats hanging low on his hips, some of the guys are already gone.

Nuge is standing by his stall talking to Jonesy and Ebs, but breaks off with a low whistle when he spots the large bruise low on Taylor’s ribs, a souvenir from a run-in with Torres in their last game. Ebs gives Taylor a slow once-over, shaking his head.

“You look like shit, babe.”

“Feel like shit.” Taylor’s words catch on a yawn as he reaches his stall. Pulling his shirt on is fun with the leftover soreness in his ribs, but it’s definitely feeling better than it did the day before. He’s a little afraid if he sits down to put his socks on he’s never going to get up again, but he’s definitely not going to manage it standing.

“What’s with your face, you non?” he demands when he glances up and sees Jonesy looking at him, his expression twisted like he can’t decide if he wants to laugh or not. 

“Nothing,” Jonesy says, hands up defensively. 

Ebs nudges Taylor’s shoulder with his bag. “Let’s go home.”

Never getting up off the bench had been looking pretty appealing, but home has KD and naps and Ebs (and possibly naps _with_ Ebs if they’re too lazy to make it farther than the couch, and even sometimes when they aren’t) so Taylor hauls himself up, sliding his feet into his sandals and ignoring the snickers. He can dead-arm Jonesy later, once he can move his own arms.

***

The second time it happens they both notice, but not till the damage is already done. The whole team is out after a win at home and the mood is pretty high. Jordan’s had enough to drink that he’s feeling pretty loose, but not nearly enough that he’s going to regret it tomorrow, and he’s beaten Nuge at darts twice already. Add all that to the fact that he had a three-point game and Jordan is having a pretty damn good night.

Except for the fact that Hallsy has been over at the bar hitting on the same girl for the last fifteen minutes when what he’s _supposed_ to be doing is getting the next round and then coming back to “school” Jordan at darts (which, whatever, Jordan’s beaten him a million times). If Hallsy wants to try to pick up, fine, awesome, but at least bring the next round over to the table first. Serious non-beauty move. 

Jordan’s buzz is steadily disappearing, so he lets Petey take a turn at trouncing Nuge and heads for the bar. He intends to just get the next round himself, but changes direction at the last minute and slides in next to Hallsy. He slings an arm around his waist-- there are a ton of people at the bar and Jordan doesn’t want to get knocked over or anything-- and grins, because it’s not like he’s mad.

He means to open with a chirp about how leaving your teammates beerless makes you a total non, but instead what comes out is “Who’s your friend, babe?”

“Uh, this is Lindsey. Lindsey, Ebs,” Hallsy says, waving a hand between them. The girl-- pretty attractive, dark curly hair-- smiles at Jordan, but it looks kinda forced. He can’t blame her. Hallsy’s kind of a douche. (Jordan likes him anyway, though.)

(Most of the time.)

“So what happened to coming back and schooling me at darts, huh?”

“Sorry.” Taylor’s smile is sheepish, the one that never fails to make Jordan smile in response, and today is no exception. “I got to talking to Lindsey and got distracted,” he continues. “Didn’t mean to ditch you guys.”

“It’s fine,” Jordan says, which, it’s not, but he’s not gonna get pissy about Hallsy trying to pick up, especially now that he’s closer and can see that Lindsey’s really hot. 

“No, you know what?” Lindsey breaks in. “You guys go back to your darts game. It was nice meeting you. See you around, Taylor.” She’s gone before either of them can say anything.

Taylor’s smile has disappeared, and as soon as she’s out of sight he wastes no time dead-arming Jordan. 

“Ow! Shit, Hallsy, what was that for?”

“Uh, I don’t know, maybe the epic cockblocking you just did?” It’s only when Taylor actually steps away that Jordan realizes his arm has been around Taylor’s waist the entire time. Huh.

“Shit, man. I’m sorry. It wasn’t on purpose.”

“Sure it wasn’t.”

“It wasn’t! Why the hell would I wanna cockblock you?” 

“Uh, as revenge for bailing on you guys?”

“Oh. Right.” Jordan frowns. “Well, I wasn’t. Trying to get revenge or whatever.”

“Then why were you being so fucking handsy?”

Jordan doesn’t have an answer for that one, so he just shrugs. Taylor stares at him for kind of a long time, then sighs.

“Whatever. I’m exhausted and you just ruined my best chance at picking up. Can we just go home?”

Now that he thinks about it, Jordan’s pretty tired too. “Yeah, let’s get out of here.”

It doesn’t take them long to close out their tabs and let the guys know they’re leaving, but it’s long enough that whatever buzz Jordan had left is completely gone by the time they make it out the door, so he feels okay driving them home. They ride back in silence, which sucks, because it means that Hallsy is asleep or angry and Jordan doesn’t really feel like dealing with either one. When he parks, though, Hallsy’s out of the truck before Jordan can even turn it all the way off.

So, angry then.

As always with Hallsy angry translates directly into bitchy, which means that he closes the apartment door as soon as he walks in even though Jordan is maybe five steps behind him.

“Seriously?” he yells, kicking his shoes off and hanging up his jacket before following Hallsy to his room. “Why are you being such a dick right now?”

“Well, because of you, I have zero chance of getting laid tonight, so.” Taylor’s already stripped out of his lame cardigan and is in the process of pulling his shirt over his head, so Jordan is understandably distracted for a moment.

“Yeah, and I apologized for that. Twice,” he says finally. He gets distracted again when Taylor kicks his jeans off, though, and okay, maybe some things are starting to click into place. Maybe he can finally place that strange pull he always feels toward Taylor, and maybe he finally realizes the familiar ache that’s resurfacing right now is called _want_.

When Taylor walks past him toward the closet, Jordan grabs his arm and pushes him against the wall, kissing him firmly before moving to suck a bruise to the spot right behind Taylor’s jaw that he’s maybe been a little obsessed with forever (and yeah, okay, the fact that he’s only just now catching on that maybe that means he’s been a little obsessed with _Taylor_ forever is probably proof of how dumb he is, he’s willing to own that).

“Uh-- what are you doing?” Taylor asks when Jordan gets down on his knees, his hands framing Taylor’s hips.

“Giving you a chance to get laid tonight?” Jordan offers, and he’s ready to hate how fucking _hopeful_ he sounds, but when he glances up Taylor is grinning at him and that’s good, that’s really good. He hooks a couple of fingers into the waist of Taylor’s boxer-briefs, pressing one open-mouthed kiss, and then another, to the skin the move uncovers, and God, he hopes that smile means what he thinks he does. “That okay?” he asks. “I mean, I’m no Lindsey, but--”

Taylor laughs. “Rather it be you anyway,” he admits after a moment, voice already well on its way to wrecked. Jordan smiles against his hip as he feels Taylor’s fingers flex in his hair.

“Good.”

***

The next time barely even registers. Both sets of parents are in town for their last regular-season home game against Calgary, and Taylor and Jordan are both rushing to get ready to have lunch with them after morning skate.

Taylor has all but moved into the master with Ebs, which is usually awesome, but it does tend to hinder things like getting ready to go places in a timely fashion, which is nearly impossible with both of them in the bathroom. Especially with how much time Taylor puts into his appearance. Without fail, Ebs is ready to go everywhere before he is (even on days when Ebs manages to oversleep), and it makes Ebs crazy because he hates when anyone is late to anything.

Because of this, Ebs is the one to get the door when the bell rings. Taylor is barely out of the shower, so he’s more than happy to let Ebs deal with it while he slides his jeans on and tries to do something with his hair. It’s getting too long-- like, rookie year pre-shave long.

A few minutes later he steps out into the living room. “Ebby, do you know where my blue shirt is?”

“You have a million blue shirts, babe, be more specific,” Ebs says from where he’s got his recliner kicked out and was apparently talking to both his mother and Taylor’s mother about something. 

“The dark blue v-neck,” Taylor says quickly. His mother is giving him one of those searching mom-looks that all mothers must go to some special school to learn, and he’s pretty sure both of Ebs’ sisters are checking him out because he forgot to put a shirt on or button his jeans before he walked out. All in all, he’s feeling pretty uncomfortable right now.

“It’s hanging up in the laundry room since you got all bitchy last time I put it in the dryer.”

“Awesome, thanks.” Taylor flees to the laundry room, but not in enough time that he can pretend he doesn’t hear what his mother says next.

“You _still_ don’t do your own laundry?”

Ebs laughs (and is it bad that Taylor knows his different laughs, and what his face probably looks like right now even though they’re in separate rooms?). “Trust me, it’s better for everyone if he doesn’t.”

He makes sure to dead-arm Ebs when he gets back to the living room, shirt on and jeans buttoned. “Whatever, it’s not like you ever do any of the dishes.”

“Yeah, but at least I’m capable of doing the dishes if I need to do them,” Ebs counters, tipping his head back so that he can see Taylor, albeit upside down, where he’s standing behind the couch. Taylor grins down at him in spite of himself.

“That’s cute. How long have you two been married?” Ashley asks. Ebs flips her off, but he’s smiling.

Taylor rolls his eyes and keeps walking toward the bedroom where his cardigan and shoes are. 

“I thought that was Jordan’s room!” Whitney calls after him. 

He flips her off too before he closes the door.

***

A bunch of them get together at Horc’s place every week they can to watch the new episodes of _Oil Change_ , because chirping each other about it in realtime is way more fun than waiting till the next day, and this week is no exception. With the end of the regular season pretty damn close, they all need a break-- especially since it’s looking like they’re actually going to make the playoffs this year.

Jordan’s just made himself comfortable in the chair-and-a-half thing with Hallsy (despite fucking Tubes and his snickering) when the episode starts and one of those teaser clips at the beginning reminds him that, shit, this episode is the one with the tour of the new apartment. Awesome. So it’s him and Taylor on the chopping block tonight, then.

“This is gonna be good,” Jonesy says gleefully, rubbing his hands together and kicking his feet up onto the coffee table. At a pointed look from Cindy, he drops them back onto the floor.

The episode starts out fairly normal, par-for-the-course shots of the team skating and interviews with Kreuger and the staff and a few of the guys, and Jordan gets caught up in chirping Whits about his terrible mustache and actually forgets for a few minutes that his segment is up next. All too soon, though, he hears the voice over guy say, “For Oilers linemates and roommates Jordan Eberle and Taylor Hall, the lockout took them away from not only their team and, for a short while, from each other, but also from their new apartment in Edmonton. As a result, the boys are still...settling in.”

It opens on a shot of their new living room, which is actually fairly decently decorated if Jordan does say so himself. Not that he or Hallsy had anything to do with that, of course. And the tour itself isn’t that bad. They’d even remembered the crew was coming over just in time to toss some of Taylor’s stuff back in his old room so that it wasn’t _entirely_ obvious that the room hasn’t been slept in in months (except for those rare times Nuge is too drunk to get home). 

But then it’s the actual interview segment. He’s really not looking forward to this, mostly because he can’t remember a damn thing he said even though it was just filmed a couple weeks back. But damn it, he’s a grown man and he can watch himself on television without cringing and covering his face with his hands. Unlike some people (he won’t name names, but it rhymes with _Bags_ ).

“It sucked,” his onscreen self is saying. “Like, I love that I got to keep playing in what was obviously an awful situation for everyone, but being away from home is never fun, you know? And playing without Taylor was weird.”

“You should’ve seen him when I finally got to OKC.” They’re both sitting in their recliners, and Taylor’s grinning like a loon. Jordan elbows the real Taylor for that. “I think he cried, he was so happy to see me.”

“Uh, no, babe, I think that was you.”

Jordan doesn’t get to see whatever happens after that, because Horc pauses the show and turns to him with the most ridiculous look on his face. 

“ _Babe_?”

Jordan blinks. “What?”

“You called Hallsy ‘babe’?”

“He does it all the time,” Nuge says, shaking his head with this really long-suffering look on his face, like his life’s so hard, which, whatever.

“What?” Jordan exclaims. “I do not!”

“Actually, you kinda do,” Hallsy pipes up oh so helpfully. Jordan punches his thigh under the throw they’ve got tossed over them.

“Whoa, hand check!” Jonesy calls. 

Hallsy, ever the mature one, raises both of his hands in Jonesy’s direction, middle fingers sticking straight up. 

“I hate all of you, and I am going back to OKC where people respect me.”

“Okay, but before you go, are you two fucking or not?” Whits asks. “Because I can’t figure you out.”

“Wow, Whits, you can’t just ask that.” Sam’s at least trying to look slightly offended on their behalf, which Jordan appreciates. He makes a mental note not to give Sam too much shit for the next week or so.

Taylor rolls his eyes. “You wouldn’t be so interested in our sex life if you were getting any yourself, Whits.”

“So you admit that you two do have a sex life? I just feel like this is information the rest of us need to know.”

“Why? It’s not like I’m going to blow Ebs in the locker room.”

“Oh my god, _Taylor_.” Jordan wonders if his face is as red as it feels. Also, he kind of wants to die. Horc looks horrified, Gags is staring at the ceiling like he wants it to crash down on him right now, Jonesy is laughing his ass off on the sectional with his wife and Cindy, and Nuge looks bored. Jordan could’ve predicted that Nuge is beyond being traumatized by them, though, given that he’s walked in on them twice in the last month (not that it’s their fault that he took the unlocked front door as an invitation to just waltz on in without knocking).

“Can we go back to watching the show, please?” Nuge asks, grabbing another piece of pizza. 

“I think that’s a fantastic idea,” Cindy says quickly. Jordan sends her a very grateful look when she reaches for the remote and unpauses the episode, then glares at Whits when he dares open his mouth again. 

When the show has moved on to Duby’s latest weird goalie ritual and the guys are all chirping him even though he’s not there to defend himself, Taylor leans over to say in a low voice against Jordan’s ear, “I totally would, though. Blow you in the locker room. Like, once everyone else was gone.”

“Stop. Talking.”

***

From that point on, Ebs is a lot more careful about calling him “babe” when other people are around. At least, Taylor thinks he is, because he’s been doing it a lot less. Not that Taylor’s like, upset about that. He’s totally cool with the “no pet names in public” thing.

It’s the first time in seven years that the Oilers have made it to the playoffs and the local media outlets are basically heading straight for crazytown. He can’t really blame them; Taylor hasn’t been in a playoff game since his last Memorial Cup tournament, so he’s feeling kinda like a little kid in those last few days before Christmas the day that several of them go on Struds’ radio show for an interview.

“So I hear there’s been some shuffling of road roommates,” Struds says about half an hour in. Taylor knows good and well not to trust that jackass grin on his face-- hockey player or radio host, Struds can chirp with the best of them. “Could you guys just not put up with Ebs and Hallsy anymore? Because like, I can’t blame you. Hallsy’s a messy dude.”

Taylor glares at him. “I’m not that bad.”

“Yeah, the last straw was when I came in late one night and busted it tripping over his bag. Fell right into the corner of the desk,” Whits drawls. “Like I need more opportunities to get injured.”

Struds nods in agreement. “I don’t think fans would appreciate it if Hallsy’s bag took you out early the year you guys finally get to the playoffs.”

“Not so much.” 

“It was _once_ ,” Taylor protests.

“It’s happened like six times, actually,” Gags points out. He’s too far away for Taylor to kick him in the shin. 

“Guys, seriously, I’m not that bad.”

“You really are, babe.”

Everyone freezes for a minute, and then Jonesy makes a triumphant crowing noise.

“Pay up,” he says, punching Gags in the shoulder, which, what. Jackasses. 

“Wait,” Struds says, grin widening. “Why is there money changing hands in my studio?” He sounds far too cheerful for Taylor’s liking. This is not gonna end well.

“Me and Gags had a bet going on whether Ebs could make it through the whole show without calling Hallsy ‘babe’,” Jonesy explains. “He had more faith in you than I did,” he tells Ebs, who is staring at his microphone like it’s the most fascinating thing in the world. His ears are red. It’s fucking adorable. Of course, Jonesy is making sure that his mic picks all of this up, the non, and he _is_ close enough for Taylor to kick under the table. Hard.

Struds, meanwhile, is about to fall out of his chair. “Is this like a _thing_?” he asks once he’s managed to stop laughing. 

“Oh, yeah. He does it all the time. I think he’s been watching too much Hawaii Five-0,” Gags says. 

Struds looks thoughtful. “I don’t think Ebs is mouthy enough to be Danno.”

“I hate you all,” is Jordan’s only contribution, because he’s too busy pouting.

It’s cool, though. Taylor’ll make it up to him later.

***

Jordan usually really hates media day. It means the end of the season and everyone going their own separate ways for the summer and him not seeing Taylor till sometime in September.

He hates it a lot less this year. They’ve finished out the season with a six-game series against Chicago, and they didn’t win, but it wasn’t because they’d played poorly. Chicago had just been better. Going out in the first round sucked, but at least they’d been in the playoffs at all. It’s a start.

“What are your plans for the summer, Jordan?” one of the reporters asks. “Are you planning to spend it in Calgary again this year?”

“Uh, I’ll probably go home for a bit, yeah,” he says, laughing a little and adjusting his cap (well, Hallsy’s cap, but whatever). 

“Are you planning to train there again?”

“Maybe for a little bit, but I think Hallsy mentioned doing the BioSteel camp this year, right babe?” he asks, glancing over his shoulder to where Taylor’s packing up his stuff in the stall next to Jordan’s.

“Yeah, Segs and Skinner both said it’s supposed to be great, so I wanna give it a shot,” Taylor says. Jordan grins, because that’s definitely his grey t-shirt Taylor’s wearing. He turns back to the cameras, taking off his hat and pushing his hair back off his forehead, a go-to nervous gesture he’d never even noticed till Whits pointed it out.

“So, yeah, I think we’re gonna do BioSteel in August, and just see what happens for the rest of the summer. I know we’re going on an actual vacation at some point, though,” he says, grinning.

“We?” one of the reporters repeats, raising her eyebrows and glancing back and forth between him and Hallsy.

Jordan looks over his shoulder and sees Taylor beaming at him and his grin grows bigger, if that’s possible. “Yeah,” he says, turning his smile back on the cameras. “We.”


End file.
